


A Lion in Winterfell

by sbarmarj



Series: The Lion's Pride [5]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Arya is scary, Brienne is the Best, Gen, Tyrion is smarter than I am, Will never happen in canon, Women Being Awesome, and therefore a writer's worst nightmare, post Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2017-12-24 19:34:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/943825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sbarmarj/pseuds/sbarmarj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tyrion travels to Winterfell for his wife's name day. While there he finally talks with his brother about their father's death, learns a little more about his good sister, and settles the matter of his marriage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Walls of Winterfell

**Author's Note:**

> So Nora Ephron once said the hardest part of writing is writing. Its the only thing that can explain my long delay on getting this posted. Obviously there is more to come. Hopefully at a better pace. 
> 
> Un-beta'd and its not like I woke up this morning and looked in the mirror to realize I was GRRM, and by that I mean I don't own anything.

“You’ve found me.”

Jaime’s tone is not welcoming. He did not invite his brother to follow him when he left the Great Hall during the meal, but Tyrion has never waited to be invited where he is not wanted.

Ignoring Jaime, Tyrion ungracefully leverages himself into one of the study’s unfamiliar chairs. He is even more out of place in Ned Stark’s library than Jaime once was. And unlike Jaime, Sansa did not invite her husband to use her father’s private study.

“Are we playing a game brother?”

Tyrion does not bother to sound honestly curious. He is well aware of the game they play and their positions on the board.

“If we are, its one you will surely win.”

Jaime won the games they played as children. Then he won the games they played with steel. Tyrion’s never bested Jaime with a sword, but his tongue is a thousand times faster than Jaime’s blade ever was. It’s the weapon needed for the current game they play.

“You were never very good at this game, Jaime.”

Tyrion, of course, says a thousand other things with his deliberate delivery and more deliberate silence after speaking.

_If you wanted to hide from me you should have chosen somewhere other than behind my wife’s crown._

_You over played your hand, and lost it as a result._

_You forfeited your children for a worthless victory._

“No. I am not good at this game. Its why you are here.”

Jaime lost his children because he played badly, he will not forfeit Sansa’s crown and her happiness because he is too proud to admit Tyrion’s skill is needed in the North.

“You never acknowledged your flaws before.”

_When you were blinded by Cersei._

_When you were the Lion of Lannister._

_When your son needed a strong father._

_Before you found a queen worthy of your loyalty._

_Before you loved Brienne._

“Some of us are not lucky enough to have our flaws exposed to the world from birth like you and Brienne.”

“I would rather be forced to share my flaws with the world than have my virtues called flaws. Your broken oath saved this kingdom. ”

“That flaw pales compared to my years of virtuous fidelity which almost destroyed the kingdom I saved.”

“Love is a virtue only to those who have never chaffed under its burden.”

“But, I did not chafe under love, Tyrion. I would have damned this kingdom, my children and every other soul in the name of love. I would have welcomed the White Walkers with open arms, and killed a thousand kings if it meant she was by my side. Do you prefer my flawed virtues or my virtuous flaws?”

Jaime wonders if he could have loved Cersei less, or have ever been strong enough to set his love for her aside. It would not have made Robert a good man, or Joffery a good king, but it might have been enough to preserve peace. He wonders if he had been a better man then a united Westeros would have met the threat of the Others.

“I do not think what you felt for Cersei was true love. It wasn’t your heart that lead you to our sister.”

“Yes, well my cock has always made questionable choices. According to everyone you need look no farther than my wife.”

“While I will never understand your cock’s decisions, you would have just fucked Brienne-”

“Do you need both hands to serve the Dragon Queen? Remember you are speaking of my wife.”

Tyrion paused to look at his own right hand. Jaime wonders if Tyrion was happy when he learned his perfect brother was broken beyond repair. For the first time Tyrion had something lost forever to Jaime.

“It would increase the family resemblance. I do not understand your feelings for Cersei, but I do know that it made your virtues into flaws. Your love for Brienne…Your love for Brienne is no more stupid than your love for a brother who killed your mother.”

“You did not kill Mother.”

“I did kill Father.”

“Only because I released you. He died that night because I let you kill him.”

“You really think that you deserved credit for that murder? Your kindness only hastened Father’s death. But, I assure you, I would have found a way to kill him with my own hands even if it meant coming back from the dead.”

“I know that. I knew it when I told you what Father did. I knew it when you told me you killed Joffery and I still let you go.” Jaime hadn’t admitted it to himself at the time. As skilled as he was in his critique of others, he was far more adept at lying to himself. “You are his true son—the true lion. He would have done the same thing as you if it had been his wife.”

For the first time in their conversation, for the first time since Tyrion arrived in the North, he looks surprised.

“You have nothing to say to that little brother? Do you know why I will lose this game of queens? Do you know why Sansa needs a real lion in Winterfell? Because I will only break my oaths for honor. You will break a sacred trust because of vengeance and love.”

“You think I love Sansa?”

“No, brother. And she does not love you. But, she has not annulled your marriage even though she despises that you are a Lannister and she does not care about your gold. What other woman in the world will welcome you to her bed because of who you are?”

Jaime does not say more. Even if his brother never considered why he is attracted to Sansa, Jaime is sure that he guessed right at Tyrion’s motivation. He knows that Tyrion is too smart to deny the truth of it too. Somehow in the Red Keep Sansa learned to look past titles and names to see the worth of a person. Jaime knows it’s the only reason she did not slit his neck that first night.

It’s the reason he hopes she might love his brother someday.

“You are giving me Winterfell because I am a kinslayer? You are willing to trust Sansa to me because I killed our father?”

Now Tryion actually sounds incredulous. It’s been years since Jaime has been able to get such an honest reaction out of his brother. Under any other circumstances Jaime would enjoy this conversation, but Jaime just wishes his brother’s visit was ending instead of only beginning. His brother’s presence brings no joy to Winterfell.

“Did you not just tell me that my virtues are mistaken for flaws? It’s a family trait Tyrion.”

Before Tyrion could answer there was a soft knock at the door, and Arya entered carrying a tray with wine and two goblets.

“Excuse me Ser, my lady thought you might like something to drink.”

Jaime does not believe a word she says. Both Sansa and Brienne would have told Arya to leave him alone, and they both agree that he should drink less. But, Arya knows he will not disagree with her in front of his brother.

“Thank you, Jeyne.” Arya nods to him, and places the tray on the table between them. She does not wait for his permission to pour the wine. Jaime is sure Arya has been eavesdropping on the conversation thus far and will continue to do so if he shoos her out of the study.

“Tyrion I am not giving you Winterfell. It is not mine to barter away, and even if it was it would not give me the right to sell Sansa.”

Arya does not react to Jaime’s words and continues to smoothly pour wine into his cup.

“Father would be horrified to hear you sounding so progressive.”

“I think he would be more horrified by my wife’s progressive ideas.”

There is no need to tell Tyrion that most of Jaime’s ideas about supporting young women and their untraditional choices is a result of Brienne’s supportive relationship with her father. The rest he’s developed watching Sansa struggle to learn the things Robb was taught from birth. No one ever thought Sansa would need to know how to lead.

Arya’s shoulders shift just a bit like she is swallowing a laugh. She finishes pouring the wine and starts to stoke the fire. They must be her evening entertainment.

“He would be more than horrified by Brienne. All the years he spent trying to get you to marry and you got the last laugh.”

“That’s not the reason I married Brienne.”

“I know that, you know that, anyone with a heart knows that, but Father would think that you did it to spite him.”

Jaime laughs because Tyrion’s right. Tywin would think that Jaime did it just to get back at him for his years of scheming.

Done with the fire, Arya begins to neaten the desk. It will probably take her the rest of the night to get it into any semblance of order. Sansa and Jaime are both prone to leaving whatever they were working on in stacks that topple over at inconvenient times. Brienne is the neatest of them, but she refuses to straighten up after Jaime complained once that he couldn’t find anything when she was done with the desk. Arya never seems bothered by the mess when she goes over their notes most nights, and, somehow as part of her unorthodox training, she is surprisingly good at organizing it in a fashion everyone is pleased with.

Tyrion registers that Jaime is unconcerned about a servant rifling through the private correspondence on the desk.

“You don’t worry about drafts here in the North? I would think the cold would spread like whispers.”

“Listen well brother. The walls of Winterfell whisper only to the Stark Queen. You may be her husband, but you will never be her king and Winterfell knows that.”

Jaime hopes this marriage will bring them both some happiness, and Sansa some needed help, but mostly he hopes Tyrion will let Sansa be the ruler the North needs. If he does not, and tries to interfere, Jaime knows Arya will put her training to use on her sister’s behalf.


	2. A Northern Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With no other options available, Tyrion asks Brienne for advice about his wife.

“You’ve done well by our squire, Lady Knight.”

Brienne noticed Tyrion sitting amongst the childings when she was sparring with Pod. She was not sure if Tyrion had planted himself there in an attempt to hide, or if because he could actually see the practice yard that way. Since he did not approach after the match like the youngsters did, she had assumed he’d seen whatever he wanted and had moved on to some other part of the castle. 

“I just did my duty. Pod did the hard work.”

“Do not discount how hard a duty it is to raise an honorable man. Do you have a moment to speak with me?”

Tyrion has paid her little attention since he arrived though, as always, he has been perfectly polite to her. His time has been devoted to observing Sansa and annoying Jaime. She wonders why he is interested in talking to her now. 

“I was planning on visiting the Godswood. Would you care to join me?”

Brienne had been planning no such thing, but it’s the only place in Winterfell she is sure that Arya will not eavesdrop on them. Jaime finds it reassuring that she has been shadowing Tyrion since he rode through the castle gates. Brienne is still uncomfortable enough with the assassin to prefer their conversation not be observed. 

Tyrion nods and lets Brienne lead, though she is certain that he knows the way as well as she does. Neither speaks on the short walk there. Given the differences in their heights, they have both learned it is easier to wait until they are sitting unless they want the entire castle to hear what they say to each other. 

When she suggested the Godswood, she thought they would stop well before the heart tree. Yet once she enters she finds herself drawn deeper past the burned ruins to the heart tree. It’s the only one of the old trees that has new growth budding on its branches. 

“I did not know you followed the old gods.”

“I do not.”

Brienne does not mean to end the conversation before it even starts. However, she can’t think of another way to answer the question. 

“Do flowers really grow only where he steps?”

Of all the ridiculous rumors she has heard in the South about the North this is the one that she finds the hardest to tolerate. 

“Posies don’t bloom where he shits in the Red Keep?”

Now she has stilted their conversation with a vulgar joke. Normally, talking with Tyrion is easier than this. Of course she would have never made the joke if she was anything other than comfortable with her good-brother.

“If it did, we would sell tickets and surely be able to cut taxes with the extra revenue.”

Brienne can’t help but smile at Tyrion. She can understand how he earned his nickname when he is in moods like this. He absolutely would sell tickets to something like that if it would help refill Daenerys’ coffers. 

“See that tree over there, the oak that split? He sat there for several hours mediating last time he visited.”

She gestures to the tree she means, in case her description is not enough for Tyrion.

Brienne thinks the moss that cushioned Bran looks greener than the rest of the forest floor. The saplings around the oak certainly are taller and more vigorous than the others they passed on their way here.

“Yes. Did he meditate over there too?”

Tyrion points on the other side of the pond where there is another lusher patch. From a distance it is easier to see the healthy parts of the wood in the burned dead trees. 

“No. He set up camp there two visits ago.”

“Is it concerning to you that he does not sleep in a bed when he comes?”

She shrugs her shoulders and ponders what to say. Tyrion does not push for an immediate answer. 

“It is helping the wood and the North recover from Ramsey.” After everything else Ramsey did to these people trying to sever their connection to their gods feels the cruelest. “Bran shouldn’t be disconcerting; not after everything else.”

Bran’s power does not make her skin crawl or settle over her like the deep wrongness she associates with the wights and white walkers. Most of the time it feels good: like the warm summer sun or the smell of fresh baked bread. 

“We both ride dragons and its still hard for me to accept his power; he is capable of things beyond what is human.”

Tyrion cuts to the quick of it. Bran’s power is just as other as the white walkers even if it is not as destructive. He will always be a Stark and the North will always appreciate his efforts to undo Ramsey’s destruction, but the North will never follow Bran like they will Sansa. 

“Is it why Sansa will not name Bran as her heir?” 

Tyrion would not feel comfortable asking Jaime about this, and Sansa has cleverly avoided any private conversations with her husband since he arrived as far as Brienne knows. 

The reason for this conversation is suddenly becoming more apparent. 

“Yes. She would be able to avoid your marriage bed if she had an heir, but the North will not have Bran as king.”

“Rickon still lives. A true Stark must be better than using Lannister seed to grow an heir.”

“Rickon would doom the North and the South. He is a good lad, but he has been wild too long to wear a crown and bend to decorum. Sansa will raise an heir who will honor this peace; its not too hard a duty for her.”

Brienne does not hesitate to twist Tyrion’s words and give them back to him. They both know raising an honorable man is a duty he has never wanted to fulfill. Its not clear to her if he will tend the seeds that he plants in the North.

“Aye, but an heir would not solve her problem with Manderly. She still needs me for that.”

“What she needs is a husband who is as invested in promoting peace as she is. Manderly represents the North that refuses to forget Rhaeger’s actions, Ned’s assassination, and the slaughter at the Twins.” 

“He wants Westeros to break apart at the Neck. Is there nothing he values from this peace?”

“I think he would keep Bran and his dragon, but otherwise Manderly wants the North to be its own kingdom, with its own King and Queen.”

“And, all the better if he is the King.”

Brienne nods. Tyrion has summed up the current situation. 

“Daenerys would destroy the North for such insolence.”

Brienne nods again. Tyrion speaks the truth. Daenerys has embraced this tentative peace, but she is still learning to care for it like the saplings that spring up where Bran rests. Of the two, Sansa is the master gardener eking out unexpected blooms. 

“Manderly does not understand the Dragon Queen’s fondness for war. He thinks she is like Sansa.” 

Brienne says this even though she is sure that Tyrion has already realized Manderly’s misguided opinions about Daenerys.

“Manderly also does not know my wife. Sansa may not crave vengeance like Daenerys, but she has learned to war. You taught her the power of violence. She certainly didn’t know it when I married her.”

“You are wrong. She knew its power then. She just did not know how to wield it as a queen to protect her country and subjects.”

Brienne does not think that she deserves credit for that lesson. 

Yes, she and Jaime taught Sansa how to provision an army, build a camp, and lead men to their deaths. They did not teach her how to intimidate the weak or to find pleasure in cruelty. She learned violence from Joffery. When he ordered her beaten he taught her how far a king’s power extends over the body of his subjects. 

Only a king can teach that lesson to a queen. 

“Sansa is much changed from the girl I married. I know her no better than Manderly knows Daenerys. And to know one is not to know the other. Our queens are very different rulers: one forged in fire, the other sculpted in ice.”

“Do you think you can serve both fire and ice?”

Brienne wonders if any man can stand so close to two crowns without his loyalty souring on the bitter knowledge that neither throne will ever be his. 

“You’ve sworn oaths to both.”

“And I feel the burden of those oaths with every breath.” 

She is not sure that its fair to ask Tyrion to bridge the South and the North and she is certain it’s a burden that cannot be forced on him. If he is to keep his oaths to both Queens he must chose these twin burdens. 

“Have you heard the stories of Daenerys time in Meereen? Before she came back across the Narrow Sea?”

“Some. I don’t believe most of what the songs say.”

“I can understand your distrust of songs. I heard one that said you are seven feet tall and carried my brother across the threshold on your wedding night. At least only half of that one was a lie.” 

It must be a Lannister trait to need to add levity to a conversation. 

“Jaime will surely love it.”

“You can serenade him with it later.” Now, the mood lighter, Tyrion moves to his point. “I was in Meereen. She lost the city long before she fled. Have you ever seen a flame in a sealed lantern?”

“Yes. I do not understand why it matters.”

“Its consumes the air until it burns out. Daenerys can do the same thing. She did it in Meereen. Her ideals, her anger, her empathy, and her desire to be a great queen consumed the fuel she needed to lead. I wondered if her energy would burn up her potential; if she would follow her father into madness.”

“I still do not see why it matters.”

“Her flame is controlled here. Like a flue was put into the lantern. She has learned pragmatism, patience, and how to numb her feelings. Someone has taught her how to be a Queen.”

Brienne thinks on what Tyrion has said. It’s a startling revelation that is all too familiar. She has her own version of this story.

“When we first arrived in the North and Sansa was greeted as Queen, I worried the crown would break her. She was so brittle then”

Tyrion does not ask Brienne to get to the point of her story, which is just as well because Brienne needs time to collect her thoughts. 

Its odd to finally voice this fear to someone other than Jaime, especially when it no longer weighs on her. They use to talk about it when they finally exhausted the last of the battle lust from a night of fighting wights, but were still too scared, still feeling too alive, to sleep. They both worried that they had saved the girl from one hell only to deliver her to an even worse fate. 

Brienne continues, “It wasn’t until Daenerys arrived with her dragons that I stopped fearing for her.”

She wasn’t the only one who noticed Sansa became a more flexible Queen, willing to defy convention, once the white walkers were beaten back with dragon fire, and the Wall’s forces reinforced with Daenerys’s foreign fighters. Jon thought it was the relief of knowing the North was safe that finally allowed her to relax into her crown. Brienne thinks that it was Daenerys’s example of a Queen who led like a King that allowed Sansa to think beyond tradition. Jaime has never offered an explanation.

“Fire and ice; the sun and the moon. Maybe Aerys would have been a good king if he had to share the regal sky with another light.”

Based on the things that Jaime has said about the Mad King Brienne is inclined to agree with Tyrion’s pondering. 

It all leads back to Manderly and the reason for Tyrion’s visit. 

“If Manderly succeeds there will be nothing left in the North to light the night sky.”

“My brother seems to think I can safeguard the moon. I just don’t know how to ask my wife if she agrees.”

“That’s why you asked to talk to me? You need advice on how to approach Sansa?”

Brienne can’t stop laughing. 

Tyrion finally speaks when it is clear Brienne is struggling to recover her composure. 

“I really don’t enjoy people laughing at me.” 

“You look like the cat the childings tried to bathe yesterday.”

Tyrion makes a sound that is eerily similar to that cat as well. 

“I don’t—I am sorry—It’s just…” Brienne has to pause to wipe the tears out of her eyes. “You realize how ridiculous it is to ask me for romantic advice. Especially about Sansa.”

Brienne’s laughter starts anew. It was Sansa who finally goaded Jaime into admitting his feelings to Brienne when the teenager could no longer handle his fumbled attempts to understand his feelings. 

Of course this would not reassure Tyrion under the current circumstances.

“There are a limited number of people who know Sansa’s heart and who willing talk to me.”

“How limited?”

“It’s a list of one.”

“It should be Jaime, not me, on that list.”

“Well, you are what is left to me.”

Brienne thought it was not possible for her husband’s family to break her heart even more. 

“I wish I could tell you how to go about it, but I do not know what she needs to hear from you. I can tell you this, though, Jaime loves you both too much to trap you in an unhappy union. He believes you can find peace with Sansa.”

Now its Tyrion’s turn to laugh till tears threatened to spill out of his eyes. 

“I dislike it when people laugh at what I say.”

“I do not mean to belittle your words. Its…I seem cursed to always underestimate my brother’s capacity for love. Don’t look so perplexed. Even to me as a child it was clear he loved wearing the white. I never imagined he loved Westeros more than that oath. He loved our sister enough to let her bitterness poison him. I never imagined he would admit their incest to try and save his children. I didn’t know he could love them more than he loved her.”

“I don’t think Jaime knew how much he loved them until he let himself try to save them.”

“I swear I would have intervened if I believed he would do it. I never meant for Tommen and Myrcella to pay their father’s debts to me.”

“I know.” 

She does believe him. 

Tyrion was the only person more surprised than Jaime by his willingness to ruin what little was left of Cersei’s reputation. She just wishes Tyrion had been more willing to believe her when she said Jaime would drag Cersei and himself through every sewer Tywin made Tyrion inspect if it would save Tommen. 

“When I got the invitation to come here I thought he was going to use my wife against me again.”

Not for the first time, Brienne is thankful Tywin is already dead and buried. If he wasn’t, she would put him in the ground before he could get at any child of hers. Its too bad six feet of soil is not enough to stop him from still hurting his sons. 

“At least you still trusted him enough to come.”

“I assumed curiosity would kill the cat.”

“And now?”

“I should learn that when it comes to love Jaime is willing to forgive any flaw. But I still do not know what to say to Sansa. I promised to wait for her to invite me to her bed.”

“She told me.”

“Oh. What else has she told you about me?”

Tyrion and her husband wear their emotional scars in such different ways, but both act the same when faced with the possibility of rejection—they put on a cloak of avoidance.

“Tyrion are you a coward?” 

“No.”

“Then go fucking talk to her already.”

“Those don’t sound like your words.”

“They aren’t. Its what Sansa’s said to Jaime before he finally told me he loved me.”


	3. A Queen's Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa finally talks to to Tyrion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oblique references to rape, less oblique references to suicide.

"I didn’t think this would actually work.”

She closes the door behind him.

“You are my husband. Why would my bedchamber’s door be barred to you?”

After so many years of watching Tyrion poke and toy with people because it’s the only thing he is better at than everyone else, Sansa finds it far too gratifying to annoy her husband. 

“I did think that there would be guards. Or at least my brother looking ominous.”

Tyrion doesn’t pretend to be anything other than nosy as he talks. So far he has stuck his nose behind the tapestries hanging on the walls and looks like he is going to move on to her wardrobe, if he can open the doors. She does not offer to help him. 

“There are guards.”

“I didn’t see any.”

“Just because you don’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”

Sansa is almost certain her father told her that once. Of course he was speaking of White Walkers. If asked he would have said the same thing about the guards in Winterfell. Until Kings Landing, Sansa never realized what a luxury it was to feel safe her entire childhood. She thought being a Stark of Winterfell would protect her from everything nasty.

“If there are guards why did you answer your door with a dagger? And that very big puppy?”

“Nymeria? She only bites kings. You have nothing to fear.”

“One of the benefits of not being a king. She was your sister’s?”

And still is, but Tyrion and most everyone else doesn’t know that. 

“Arya sent her away from King's Landing. Nymeria found me after…”

“After Arya jumped from the Wall.” 

That’s not what Sansa was going to say. Well, she wasn’t going to tell Tyrion what happened in the Eyrie either. Nymeria found her after Baelish… after Baelish used her in attempt to resurrect his dreams, and when Sansa needed something good to anchor her in the real world. Jaime and Brienne kept her safe while she healed, but it was Nymeria who she hugged when she had nightmares. It was a long time before Sansa believed that anyone other than her sister’s direwolf would keep her safe.

She wishes Jeyne had someone to care about her and to protect her. Sansa knows too well what Jeyne must have felt sold in marriage to a man who hurt her for pleasure. She understands why Jeyne didn’t believe Jon when he told her she was safe, even if she wasn’t a Stark. Jeyne made the only choice that she thought would keep her from getting hurt, and Arya Stark was the one who was mourned. Poor Jeyne didn’t even get her own funeral. 

Tyrion doesn’t ask her more about her sister. It is just as well. Sansa never knows what to say about Jeyne, or how to act when asked about Arya. Instead, he points at her dagger, which she has not yet sheathed and asks, “Should I fear your dagger? I have heard its less discerning.”

“Do you plan to hurt me?”

Tyrion stops and stares at her. 

When he finally is able to find words he sputters an answer. “No. No. I don’t plan on hurting you. I would never intentionally hurt you.”

“Then you have nothing to fear from my dagger.”

“Do I have my brother to thank for teaching you to defend yourself?”

“Not that you can thank him, but Sandor taught me so I wouldn’t be scared. He taught me how to make myself feel safe.”

“The Hound?”

“Yes.”

Tyrion starts to speak and then stops. Twice. Then he just closes his mouth and looks at her. Sansa is used to being studied. Its part of being a queen, but this is the first time that Tyrion has ever looked at her like this. Like she is a puzzle he just realized he doesn’t have all the pieces too. 

She knows she could stare back at him. Study him with the same quiet determination to make the pieces fit. She doesn’t really think there is much point to it though. She will never solve the puzzle that is her husband, and she is certain she will always surprise him. She rather likes it that way. 

Since he still seemed to be thinking, and for all that its routine, it makes her nervous to be stared at. She often has to stop herself from picking at the stitching in her sleeves when she sits in the Great Hall. It’s easier to be stared at when her fingers are busy so she returns to the mending she had been working on before he knocked. The tiny stitches are meditative and calming which she needs right now, and it will be one less thing that needs doing tomorrow. 

He keeps watching her, new questions in his eyes. 

“What are are you doing?”

“The mending.”

“The mending?”

“Yes. Brienne’s second best tunic. She is horrid to her clothing. Even worse than the childings.”

“You are mending Brienne’s tunic.”

“Her second best one. I do not know why she had to wear it to capture the castle with the children.”

Tyrion sputters some more at her answer. 

“Why are you mending Brienne’s second best tunic?”

“Because it needs doing. Isn’t that why we do anything?”

“You have servants. They surely can mend Brienne’s clothing.”

“I am sure they can, but they have plenty to do and they deserve to sleep. I don’t sleep well, and the mending is calming. And, I am better at sewing a straight line than Brienne is.”

She says it like her mother would: plain and simple. The truth lends authority to her voice, and when she talks likes it’s the simplest thing imaginable, most people respond in kind. It’s also how she talked to the soldiers whose wounds she stitched shut. Simple and strong words that hid her fear and settled her stomach even has her fingers stretched their skin and pushed needle and thread through it. 

Such thoughts will only keep sleep away. Sansa wills herself to focus on how the cloth feels under her fingers and the way the needle glides through it with ease. She remembers her mother teaching her how to thread a needle and the first crooked stitches she sewed with her mother’s hands guiding her fingers. This is nothing like sewing a man’s broken skin back together. 

“Daenerys does not do the mending.” 

Tyrion’s voice betrays nothing about what he is thinking. 

“So?”

Sansa understands why people compare her to Daenerys. Its novel to have a queen, and to have two ruling at the same time and after so much war and destruction…well, its more than most people ever imagined. What Sansa does not understand is why people expect her to be like Daenerys. 

“Its just an observation. I do not know much about you. I am more familiar with Daenerys.”

“You can ask me questions about the things you don’t know.”

“Will you answer them truthfully?”

“If I will not answer the question I will tell you so. I won’t tell you lies. I promise.”

“Do you make that promise to everyone?”

“No, only to you. Can you make me the same promise?”

Tyrion stops talking again. It’s interesting to watch him think when he feels no pressure to be fast and clever. It’s also very intimate. 

“You will never stay married to me if I lie to you.”

“That’s not an actual answer, Tyrion.” 

“I have never asked a woman to tell me the truth before and I won’t lie to a woman in my bed.”

Sansa nods because she knows this is the best agreement she will get. Brienne told her to be gentle with Tyrion. She said his emotional wounds ran deep and were still healing. Neither Jaime or Brienne will say how he got the hurts, but she remembers how he use to watch Shae with undisguised love when he thought no one was looking, and Shae…well Shae cared for him in her own way. Just not in the same way Tyrion cared for her. 

“How did you learn to trust my brother?”

“That’s the question you want to start with?”

“Do I need to remind you of the pain he has brought to your family?”

“Jaime has never done anything to betray my trust. He is honest even when he is a monster. And what you really want to know is how I came to love him.”

“You and every other female who has ever laid eyes on him are willingly ignore his monstrous deeds.”

“Don’t be jealous. You’re smart enough to know I don’t lust after him like most other women. I had to learn to forgive him first.” 

She had to learn to forgive many people. Not because what they did to her was forgivable, but because she would not be trapped by bitterness, fear, and hurt. 

“You forgave him and now you love him.”

“Like an odd uncle, the one that says inappropriate things at a banquet. You are jealous of that?”

Not that she has an uncle like that, but if Jaime had been a true uncle to Joffery, Myrcella, and Tommen he would have teased them mercilessly and showered them with presents. He has no fear of acting like that with Sansa. 

“Yes. You will never love me in any way.” 

He sounds as petulant as Jaime when Brienne is away. 

The lazy always overlook the family resemblance between Jaime and his brother because of Tyrion’s dwarfism. It was worse when Cersei was alive and the twins mirrored beauty outshined their little brother’s deformities, but if people ever looked past the most superficial differences its easy to recognize that Tyrion and Jaime are cut from the same cloth. They are much more alike than Cersei and Jaime ever were. 

“You could ask me if I will ever love you instead of assuming you know my feelings. You and your brother are such emotional cowards. If this marriage is to work you must trust me to know how I feel and be brave enough to ask me.”

“This is the second time I have been called an emotional coward today.”

“Well if the shoe fits…”

“And what about you dear wife?”

“Me?”

“Are you still scared of the marriage bed or has your curiosity won? You know they call you the Ice Queen in the south.”

He lobs the words and her, much like the wildfire that Jaime ordered launched at the wrights attacking the Wall in the final battles. But that is where the similarity ends. Jaime watched only long enough to make sure his orders were followed and the hits true before he moved along to the next line of attack. The men he ordered to attack didn’t watch as Jaime wove their limited forces into blanket that smothered the wrights and White Walkers. As he told her when he explained the battle plan, soldiers aren’t meant to observe a battle and to the men on the ground it will look like chaos unleashed. But a well-fought battle is planned with as much attention to detail as one of her fine embroideries. According to Jaime a great commander is able to keep track of each thread of the strategy without studying the actual stitches being made. 

Sansa observed from one of the watchtowers armed with a crossbow, shooting wrights that tried to scale the walls as Jaime wove their defense together. She refused to send men to their deaths while she hid deep behind stonewalls, and every able body was needed during the long nights. Jaime was fine teacher, at least of strategy and tactics, and she learned more about waging war from watching him lead her army than Robb ever did reading about great battles. 

But knowing how stitch together a battle plan is different than being a soldier on the ground. She’s imagined this conversation, and planned a thousand different patterns, but now that she is in the midst of it all the threads seem to be getting knotted. 

Sansa is surprised that it took Tyrion so long to shift and become the attacker in the conversation. She is not sure if she was able to keep him off balance until now, or if he was holding back in hopes of winning her over. 

Her fingers reach the end of the tear she was working on and she realizes she has fallen silent for longer than is polite, or reasonable. Jaime would have filled the silence already and Brienne would have started on her own chores. Tyrion has settled on footstool near the fire and seems perfectly content to study her for as long as she allows. 

“Queens cannot fear, Tyrion.”

“But women do. I did not marry the Queen of the North. I married Sansa Stark.”

“I was Sansa Stark. Now I am the Wolf Queen.”

She would never let Joffery beat her now. A queen would call her father a criminal. A queen would have shown her brother the trap he was blindly walking into. A queen would have protected Jeyne. 

Tyrion started laughing as her response and recovers himself enough to speak, “You aren’t scared anymore. You confronted the fear. But not because you are a queen.”

Sansa is not sure what about her words tells Tyrion this secret. Its been years since her eyes revealed her feelings, but maybe her husband is able to see past the mask she wears with her crown. Maybe it is because he is a much better student of human nature than his brother. 

“Was it love that made you take a man to your bed? Was it love that opened your legs, and made a cuckold of me? My brother and Brienne don’t know. He thinks you are waiting for true love. I can’t give you that, but if what you want is a cock to warm you-.”

“Brienne and Jaime assume a love like theirs is what everyone else wants. I wanted to stop being scared. I wanted to learn how to confront my fear. I wanted to stop being afraid of men.” 

Even now she is not sure what part love played in it. She realized long ago she was not meant for true love.

“If you have confronted your fear of fucking, why do you need me? Any man should be able to plant a seed in your belly. And most are far better looking than me, though not as skilled at it I assure you.”

“If all I needed was a babe, I would follow the Dragon Queen’s example. But, I want my children to learn how to make themselves safe.”

“Having a malformed father will help with that? Worse I killed my own father. A kinslayer doesn’t usually make his kin feel safer.”

“If I was your daughter would you have sent me to King's Landing to wed Joffery?”

She shudders remembering how naïve she was when she first went south. Its embarrassing to remember how excited she was about her impending marriage and about becoming a queen. Its horrify now to think that she was impressed with Joffery’s handsome face and strong body. 

“My parents prepared me to run a castle, to be a pretty wife and a good mother, but they taught me nothing of politics and how to recognize a friend in name only.” 

They didn’t teach her how to use whispers and her beauty to keep herself safe.

Margaery was meant to be a queen. Trained to it by her grandmother, and blessed with the innate talent to be good at it. A king’s queen three times, and now she has no kingdom while Sansa rules the North without ever marrying a king. 

The Seven must have a sense of humor.

“Maybe…” Tyrion clearly has never thought about this or any other what if for their children. She has spent enough time for both of them thinking about their children’s future. “It was a smart marriage, and a smart way for Robert to ensure your father’s place and hopefully limit Cersei and Tywin’s power. But…you are right that you were not prepared for it.” 

He stops again, taking time to think. “Do you want me to be my father?”

Of all the things he could have said this was not what she was expecting. 

“What? No! I can’t imagine you ever becoming your father and if you ever treat our children like your father did you, Brienne will kill you before I can.” 

Tyrion is too kind to follow in Tywin’s footsteps, but she does not threaten him as a jest. Its not one. 

Brienne has asked her about Tywin. Jaime doesn’t say much about his father, and Brienne never met him. Sansa didn’t know Tywin well, but she was used by him enough to have formed the strong opinion that Tyrion did everyone a favor when he killed his father. Sansa knows Brienne agrees. 

“What do you want from me then?”

“I want you to keep our children safe and teach them how to protect themselves. Robb was too trusting, I was too naïve, Arya too chained by convention, Bran too curious, and Rickon too young. And we were all left with too little protection.” Rickon and Bran faired the best, but both are lost to Winterfell now. “Tywin taught you and your brother how to how to be monstrous and trick kings. I want my children to learn that.”

“Why can’t you teach them that? You have learned a great deal since I first met you. My father would not call you a boring sheep now.”

Jaime wants her marriage to Tyrion to work because it will protect her from Manderly’s ambitions and secure her throne. Sansa is certain she could find a way to deal with Manderly if necessary, even if she would have to take him to her bed to do it. As for her throne, she is a Stark and no one else will ever sit on the winter throne. 

She wants Tyrion for her husband because he will never let their children be hurt the way that she was or for that matter the way he was. 

“I can protect them but I am also a queen. My children will be my pawns in the game that I play. I do not…I do not want to lose sight of the fact that they still need parents who love them. I want a husband who will stop me from using them too harshly.”

Sometimes she can’t stop herself from wondering if her mother ever really thought about what Sansa’s marriage to Joffery would be like. Its one of the many things Sansa will never be able to ask Catelyn about. Jaime is much convinced that Catelyn was the far better at the game of thrones than her husband. Sansa wants to believe that her mother knew how dangerous King's Landing would be and tried to protect Sansa and Arya. She knows Catelyn did everything in her power to recover her daughters, but now that Sansa is a queen she is inclined to think her mother pushed Ned to become the King’s Hand and for Sansa to marry Joffery because she valued the political expediency of the match and was overly confident that she and Ned could protect Sansa. 

Sansa fears someday she will make a similar choice. 

“I can’t imagine you would treat your children with anything less than love.”

“Did you ever imagine that I would cuckold you, gut Bolton, and demand the heads of every Frey who was at the Red Wedding as my price for peace? I could have marched through the Neck.” 

Sansa is not convinced that she could have taken the rest of Westeros and she really had no interest in ruling Westeros. She does know that the North, and the Wildings are loyal to her alone and would have followed her without question. Jon and Night’s Watch would have broken their vows if she asked them to they remember that she stood with them long before Daenerys and her dragons appeared to save the day. 

She could have kept her brother’s war alive in King Tommen’s name, as his aunt. Castle Rock’s bannermen would have followed Jaime and that would have allowed her to release Edmure and get the Blackfish’s support and the West through him. Margaery would have brought her the Reach’s soldiers and the South. 

She could have marched a united army into King's Landing if she had wanted to, but all she really desired once the North was secure was to hear her family laughing in Winterfell again. 

“You said I have learned much since we married, that’s because Jaime has taught me how to rule. Your brother does not have the makings of a king, but he is a kingmaker. Robert, Joffery, Tommen, and me. And I am the only one that still holds my throne. What does that tell you? I know they call me the Ice Queen. I am cold and calculating, rational and deliberate, I am a Stark.” 

Jaime taught her that the trick reprimanding a soldier was to lower her voice instead of raising it. She did not plan this scene, but she knows how she must look, her voice chillingly low while she calmly sews with a dire wolf at her feet and a dagger at her side. She earned the title of Ice Queen. 

“Tyrion I am not concerned about you becoming your father and using our children to further your own interests. I am concerned that I will.”

Sansa knows Jaime would have flung Edmure’s son at him just like he pushed Bran out the window. Without Brienne at his side, Jaime’s monsterous ways overcome his honor. His love for Brienne has made him a better man its true, but its also made him weaker. He would have given Bolton a good death and shown the Freys mercy, but as a queen she had to be stronger. If she had it to do over again she would flay Bolton until his skin was in strips she could dry and give to the smallfolk he harmed. At the time walking into Winterfell for the first time since she was a child all she could think of was what Sandor would have done to any man who hurt her. It was easy to gut Bolton and let his own refuse kill him. 

“And you expect me to stop you if that happens?”

In King's Landing Sansa never thought she could be as cruel as Cersei or as clever as Margaery. She thought the first time that Joffery ordered her stripped and beaten that she was not strong enough to be his queen. It took pain and blood, hurt and betrayal to make her see the full pattern of her soul and to realize Joffery was too weak to be her king. 

“Its comforting to be married to a kinslayer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For whatever reason Sansa is way darker than I realized. Thanks for reading. There is one chapter left and its all Brienne and Jaime fluffiness!


	4. A Queen's Gambit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look it! Look it! I finally finished this story. I have several more entries plotted out but I feel its crazy pants to promise that I will ever write them since it took me basically six months to write 2.2K words. Totally unbeta'd so forgive the typos. I was worried if I waited I would never get around to publishing this.

"Do you think she will be happy?” 

Brienne hates to break the silence, but her thoughts won’t let her sleep and she wants Jaime’s counsel on this matter. 

They should both be asleep. They were both asleep. Like most soldiers, they can fall asleep the moment their swords are sheathed, and like most soldiers they can never stay asleep. 

She likes these moments in the middle of the night when they are both awake. They rarely speak. Instead they both find comfort in this quiet intimacy. It’s the only time she knows Jaime to hold his tongue and to let his heart be open. Sometimes their bodies find each other and they move together, no longer needing words to express their desire. Other times they just lay, limbs intertwined, breathing together. 

His heartbeat is always out of sync with hers. It use to sound like their hearts were out of sync. But now it is his heart answering each beat of hers. As though they must remind each other that they are still alive. 

These nights make her think of all those nights when he was in chains and she listened to him breathing; his heart beating for Cersei. It was only in the dark, with him next to her, that she could admit she wanted nothing more than to reach for him. She wanted to let herself want him. 

Now she shares a marriage bed with him—an intimacy he never shared with Cersei. She knows Cersei would think she lost whatever game of hearts she and Brienne were rivals in, but Brienne didn’t win the game. Jaime was the only one playing, and he never stopped loving his sister. He just grew to see all of her. 

Brienne chased thoughts of Cersei from her mind as she shifted her body closer to Jaime’s. Thinking about Cersei and Sansa at the same time was never wise, and it seems particularly foolish to invite Cersei’s ghost into their bed. 

Jaime has not answered her as her mind wandered in the dark. She is certain that he knows who she is asking about. He must know that Tyrion’s moved into Sansa’s room, his own guest suite abandoned for the remainder of his trip. Brienne has not asked Sansa about it, and as far as she knows Jaime has refused to speak to his brother since their conversation in the study when Tyrion first arrived. Even if they both wanted to ignore the changed nature of Sansa’s marriage, it would be impossible when Manderly blows through the castle like an angry winter storm. 

Jaime’s hesitation is as much an answer as what he finally says, “I have yet to hear a woman complain of my brother’s performance.”

“They are paid to not complain. And you know that is not what I mean.”

“But it does matter. If Sansa takes a lover…well its not good for a queen to cuckold her husband.”

“A queen should not cuckold a king, but Tyrion does not sit on the Winter Throne. The North will not care if her babe is a lion or a snow. Anyways, I am not asking if you think that her crown will be satisfied.”

“So you are asking about my brother’s ability to sate Sansa’s appetite.” Brienne lets Jaime tease her. She use to resist it out of sheer embarrassment, and then, as she spent more time with him, purely to spite him. Now she knows he only teases when he is too unsettled to be honest.

“No, husband, I am asking if you think that she will be happy. Like we are, like her parents were. Like my parents before Galladon died, like your father was when he still had your mother. Do you think that Sansa will be happier because she shares her life with Tyrion?”

“If we were only talking about them sharing a bed, then yes she would be happy. I do not know that they will ever share a life. Thannkfully Tyrion’s seems satisfied enough with just a bed warmer.”

“You underestimate your brother’s desires.”

“No, I understand how guarded Sansa is with her heart.” 

Jaime adjusts his body so his hand can brush the hair out of her eyes, she moves towards him and rests her head on his other arm. She no longer notices that his right hand is missing. Its amazing the things that time and love can make normal. Hopefully Sansa will be patient enough to find that true of Tyrion’s odd body. 

Jaime does not need to continue, but he goes on, “I know how much Tyrion wants to be loved. I held him as a babe when father argued with Aunt Genna and Cersei. They wanted to drop Tyrion off the cliffs, like a litter of unwanted kittens, when it was clear that he was a dwarf.” 

It always surprises her that Jaime can talk about his family without sounding hurt. In fact he sounds just like he did this morning when talking with Sam about the next supply shipment to the Wall. She knows treating these memories are normal does not make them any less painful and that Jaime does it to protect his heart. Even now he expects anything he loves to be ripped out of his arms, but she hates that this shield of his is why everyone thinks he is fool’s gold: shiny, bright, and of no useful substance. 

“I don’t know if Sansa was ever meant to be happy.” Now Brienne can hear the emotion in his voice. Its subtle, but he can’t hide how much he loves their winter child, at least not from her. The only other person who would have heard the emotion was Tyrion. Even Sansa, who trusts Jaime with her crown, does not think him capable of loving her like a daughter. “Cersei never thought that happiness was something that she was owed as queen, and Robert ignored that being King was mostly depressing duties. He tried to find happiness in liquor and whores. I don’t know if Aerys was even capable of happiness towards the end. I have never known a happy monarch.”

“Is it why you let Robert take the Iron Throne?”

“Did I wish him great unhappiness? If that was the case I should have approved of his marriage to Cersei.”

She wrinkles her nose at him and pokes him in the shoulder. 

“Woman that hurts.”

“Then don’t jest when I ask you a serious question.” 

He has told her a great many things over the years since their first honest conversation in the baths, but they have never discussed why he does not lust for a throne. He has had more opportunities than most men could fathom to wear a crown, and he has always passed the burden to someone else. 

Instead of answering her, he pokes her in the kidney, when she shies away from his touch he rolls towards her using his weight to pin her to the mattress and begins attacking her flank with light fingertips. He knows from experience that the slightest pressure will cause her to erupt in giggles. He has always loved to escalate a conflict of words into a physical fight. At least in this medium he stands chance of winning against most people. But, Brienne is not most people and her muscles are still that of a woman who earns her place with her sword. Even overcome by giggles it is easy for her to grab his arm with her right hand and hold his fingers far above them where he cannot plunder her skin. As he shifts to regain control of his weapon she swiftly uses her other hand to poke him in the kidney. 

“You are a cruel tyrant who takes please in my pain wench.” Jaime tries to sound hurt but he ruins the attempt by failing to contain his laugher. Either way his methods are effective since she find it impossible to keep hold of his fingers when she is also laughing. 

“Its just a finger Jaime. No brave knight is scared of being tickled.” 

“No one ever said that I was a brave knight and I can think of much better use for your hands.” 

She lets him guide her fingers across his body.

She lingers on the scars she saw inflicted on him, each mark a testament the challenges they had to overcome to earn this marriage. She studies the scars he got long before she became his guard too. These bits of healed flesh speak of the man he once was, a man whose honor she admires but who she could never have loved. The old scars have faded with time but they were always lighter, better tended as wounds and better healed as scars. Jaime’s vanity and Cersei’s inflexibility required healers to treat his hurts so that he was still perfect, or as close to perfect as is possible for soldier. His injuries since Cersei have wholly healed, but the scars are jagged and abrupt, frequently the healer’s only goal to keep him alive without wasting what little supplies they had on him if he was going to die. 

The first time they fucked it was in a haze of blood and survival, triumph and mourning, and she barely noticed his scars. It was a rush of new battle and new conquests, a rush of new feelings, new pain, and new joy. It took several more times before they both had the patience for blissful exploration, and without adrenaline she was still as shy as she was when she was a maid. He had taken her hands then and together they had touched each part of his body before they turned to hers. That was the night she learned to make love. 

Its easy to let her memories guide her mind away from her current concerns, just like it is easy to let Jaime lead them into a different, more pleasurable, use for her fingers, but she will not be satisfied until she finishes voicing her concerns about Sansa. She moves their hands until their tangled fingers are clasped between their hearts.

“Jaime, love, I still need to know. Do you think that we have done them a disservice? Tyrion came because you signed the invitation.” 

Sansa may have been the one to extend the invitation, but Jaime was the one who dictated it to Arya on her behalf. Jaime was the one who signed it and used his Lannister seal to close it. The significance was not lost on Tyrion.

“No, we have done our duty. Sansa needs a strong husband and Tyrion needs to unite the queens. You swore to both to do everything in your power to bring peace to Westeros. I swore to honor your oaths. We were fulfilling that duty.”

“Do you think it’s a duty we should have honored?”

“Sansa is a queen. It’s never been our duty to ensure her happiness. That was her parents job.” Jaime sounds bitter but Brienne does not think its because the Starks died and Sansa was harmed as a result. Jaime’s never denied his role in Ned’s death, but he still mourns that it was not the honorable end Stark deserved. No, Jaime is aware that Ned’s shortcomings as a father are surprisingly similar to his own shortcomings with Myrcella. 

“We are not her parents, but we are the who she has to love her. Its not my duty, and it it makes me sad that my honor does not demand that she is happy. Jaime, how can a king ensure happiness for his children? The burden of the crown is just as heavy for the next generation.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if Cersei ever let herself love our children as more than pawns and figureheads she could control. It’s a queen’s gambit: love your child or prepare them for the crown? I never wanted to be a king who saw his wife as a dowry for an empty treasury, his children innocence as the price for treaties and allies, and his friends as swords and shields to protect his head. Even as a child I knew my father loved most about me was how he could use me.”

Brienne’s first memories of her father are of him teaching her to fish off a small skiff. He took so much joy in the first guppy she caught and made sure the cooks fixed it for his supper. Her father wanted her to marry, and tried to find her a husband so Tarth would have an heir, but he never put his heart into it. She is sure he could have found a man willing to take her at a price her father could pay, but Selwyn would never have beggared Tarth to bind her to a man like that. Her father greeted Jaime as his son and accepted him because Jaime loved Brienne. 

“Husband, will you swear an oath to me?” She does not need to ask Jaime for his word because she knows he will be true to this request no matter what, but she wants him to know how serious she is and he will only believe an oath.

“Anything. You know that.”

“If we ever have a daughter we will let her be happy. If she wants to marry the blacksmith or carry a sword she will get to chose her own happiness. She will never be a queen, or a pawn. We will go back to Tarth and raise our children far away from this game that has consumed our lives.”

“Brienne, my wife, I promise each of our children will be loved and protected, and each will choose their own happiness.”


End file.
